ABBA NETWORK

IN response to the article about taxi fare increases in which Gareth Owen (director of Dragon Taxis) states that he is not “an advocate of putting up fares for the sake of it”.

This company saw fit for their private hire vehicles to raise fares by some 7% three and a half months ago.

A rival company, Premier Cars, decided that a fare increase of almost a 13% was warranted from around the same date.

I term this, cynically, “overcharging”. Hackney carriages are not allowed to charge this rate as they are governed by the council’s policy, unlike the private hires.

Given that the licensing authority has no say in what private hire companies can charge, why should a director of such a private hire company have any valid comment to make on the issue of hackney carriage rates, particularly in light of the fact that the customers of their companies have unknowingly been paying such an increase for the past 14 weeks anyway?

A Casper-area Tipsy Taxi may happen after all.

Local liquor dealers decided Wednesday morning to donate the cost of insurance to allow Casper Cabs owner Tom Elliott to operate two buses to ferry holiday drinkers.

Elliott approached the city hoping to lease two retired CATC buses to use in his taxi service. Everything was ready to go when his insurance costs increased beyond a level he could afford.

The Casper City Council approved the lease of the two buses from Dec. 17 to Jan. 17 for $1 in a recent meeting, but he still had to find the money for insurance.

Poplar Wine & Spirits owner Mike Reid said he was only a couple hundred dollars short of the required $3,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. All of the money came from people in the alcohol business in Casper, and he planned to have the rest by the end of the day.

“DUIs are up, and all of us that are in the alcohol business want to see those numbers come down,” Reid said.

Elliott, who has owned Casper Cabs for about three years, said he is grateful for people’s help and “amazed at the good spirit and these people’s good intentions.”

He saw the buses in the city garage on Wednesday morning and hopes for a Friday start if everything goes as planned.

Even though the original Tipsy Taxi is a free service, Elliott said he will have to charge a nominal fee at the beginning. He imagines it will be around $5 for a flat fee to take people home.

The two buses will drive around town, stopping at the various bars and picking people up. Each bus will have a driver and another person who organizes a list of passengers, where they need to go and crowd control.

At each bar, the employees will probably go inside, announce the bus is there, wait about 10 minutes and say it will be back in an hour or so.

The buses will also take calls from people in places other than bars,

“We will be going until no one else needs a ride,” Elliott said. “All we are trying to do is keep drunken drivers off the road. If we get a call, we will go.”

If the service is a success, some council members said they will try to work with Elliott, as well as other community members, to keep the Tipsy Taxi driving.

Contact city reporter Christine Robinson at (307) 266-0639 or christine.robinson@trib.com.

To be involved

Anyone interested in donating to the Tipsy Taxi, contact Mike Reid at Poplar Wine & Spirits at (307) 473-9463.